


29/01/2019: Drowning

by pop_incognito



Series: 365 Drabbles [29]
Category: Free!
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pre-Canon, Teen Romance, fluffy boyfriends, middle school era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 09:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pop_incognito/pseuds/pop_incognito
Summary: Nao's headaches and persistent vision problems lead to a panic attack in the middle of swimming practise.





	29/01/2019: Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Um. Yeah. This is based on something a friend of mine experienced when her retina detached without her realising. Although, granted, she was running instead of swimming. Eh. There needs to be more Natsunao, and thus, I deliver my mediocre offering. Hope you all enjoy!

Nao has a headache. He squints as he makes his way down the corridor, presses his thumb into his right eye in the hopes that the pressure might relieve the pounding in his head. He’s been getting these weird cloudy patches in his sight for the last few weeks, and all this staring super-hard at things to try and see them is probably what’s brought the headaches on. As he lowers his arm, Nao checks his watch – it’s nothing fancy, a novelty band with a simple silver face, but it was a gift from Natsuya for Nao’s fifteenth birthday – he’s going to be late for training at this rate, and that just won’t do. It’s their last session before competition season starts, and now that Natsuya and Nao are vying for the captaincy and manager positions in their third year, they need to be at the top of their game.

That involves not being late for training.

“Crap,” Nao whispers, picking up the pace. His head is still throbbing, his sight still blurry, and he hopes he remembered to throw some pain killers in his bag with his jammers that morning. And that they actually are painkillers, and not the bottle of pH tablets for the fish tank. He’s already made that mistake once this month, and Natsuya still won’t let him live down the fact that Nao nearly put fish supplies in his mouth. Nao will refrain from ever letting slip that he once tasted the food flakes he feeds the fish, not wanting to give Natsuya any more blackmail material before they’re even old enough to be doing embarrassing things under the influence of alcohol.

He bursts into the changerooms with barely a minute to spare, and the team captain gives him a curious side-eye – Nao isn’t usually one for tardiness. “Get changed quickly and then start stretching,” the captain tells Nao. “Is everything alright, Serizawa-kun?”

“Yes, sempai. I apologise for being late,” Nao mumbles, scooting over to where Natsuya is already doing some arm stretches against one of the lockers. “Hey,” Nao greets him quietly. Natsuya springs out of his stretch to throw his arms around Nao, who flails slightly before settling into the embrace with only a faint blush and some light grumbling. “Come on,” he wheedles, trying to pry Natsuya off after two whole minutes of hugging. “You literally saw me half an hour ago.”

Natsuya whines something about that being half an hour too long, stilling clinging to Nao’s waist. He grins when he sees the flustered look on Nao’s face, until he realises that Nao is flustered less from his affection for Natsuya, and more flustered from pain of some kind – Natsuya knows Nao’s facial expressions well enough at this point to tell. “What’s wrong?” he asks, letting go and standing upright, leaning in slightly and narrowing his eyes like he might be able to just spot whatever is causing Nao’s pain.

“Headache,” Nao mutters, grimacing as he closes his eyes briefly, starting to take his uniform off piece by piece. He startles when warm fingers slide under his hair to massage at the back of his head, Natsuya’s fingers working out slowly until he reaches Nao’s ears, and then firm pressure slides down Nao’s neck to his collarbone. Nao stands rooted to the spot, his heartbeat jacking up until he can feel it in the back of his throat, hot flashes shooting down all his limbs from the touch. “What are you doing?” he breathes out in a rush.

Humming, Natsuya pulls his hands away. “Been reading about acupressure to see if I can help Ikuya with his sleeping. Found some stuff about headaches.” He grins brightly. “Did it work?”

Nao touches his head, smooths the ruffled hair down. The pain is still there, the weird cloud at the edge of his vision too, but the throbbing is starting to fade. “…It did, actually.” Casting a very quick glance around, he swoops up to kiss Natsuya’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Natsuya is still blushing giddily when he jumps into the pool ten minutes later. Nao takes a little longer getting into the water as he shakes the painkillers – they are painkillers, he checked – into his palm and swallows them dry. The fact that he has rapidly gotten used to dry swallowing medication in such a short amount of time is testament to how bad these headaches have been. If only the painkillers would get rid of the spots that have been floating over his vision too, or the weird light flashes he seems to be getting late at night.

“Nao, hurry up!” Natsuya calls from the pool, and Nao holds up an imperious finger, silently telling Natsuya to hold his damn horses. Nao looks over and squints against the bright flashes of the rippling water, each one a weird stab to the back of his brain, but he grins when he sees Natsuya pouting at him with his chin propped up on the side of the pool. Snapping his goggles into place, Nao delicately steps into the pool, his efforts wasted in an instant because Natsuya grabs the closest limb – Nao’s knee – and yanks him under the water. “Took your time!” Natsuya says as Nao resurfaces, spluttering indignantly and splashing Natsuya.

“Hey, you two!” the captain barks, not mad, just exasperated at the usual antics from his two best swimmers. “If you wanna make captain at the end of the year, stop acting like children and start doing warmup laps.” Although he softens the command with a smile and fond shake of his head.

“I hate you,” Nao tells Natsuya, who smiles proudly and thumps a hand to his chest. “You’re an idiot.”

Natsuya taps his nose. “Yes, but I’m _your_ idiot,” he says.

Nao is fine all through training, his warmup laps are fine, his front crawl is fine. When he turns over for his extra backstroke training – he’s doing two individual races and the second years’ medley relay – he feels fine too. Until he opens his eyes and looks up to the sky. Everything is blurry underwater already, goggles aside, but the sky… The sky shouldn’t be warping like that, like the sky is falling, curving down on the right side of Nao’s head. Thinking he might have water in his goggles, he stands up and takes them off. Nothing. Replacing them, he returns to the block and takes off again.

The sky is still falling, the floating spots coming back with a vengeance.

Nao doesn’t know why he panics, but he does, eyes slamming shut.

When he first registers being awake again – he gets the feeling he’s been awake for a while, just not cognisant of it – Nao is dry, dressed, and his headache is back again. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“Nao!” Natsuya suddenly takes up his entire field of vision. Instead of reeling back like a normal person, Nao leans in and rests his head on Natsuya’s shoulder, shaking. “Nao, do you remember what happened?” When Nao shakes his head, Natsuya wraps his arms around Nao and starts stroking his back. “You had a panic attack,” Natsuya says quietly. “You sunk and swallowed a heap of water before I dragged you out. The captain got you cough all the water up but we had to take you to the hospital-” Nao looks up suddenly, startled, mouth open to ask the most obvious question. Natsuya shakes his head. “Your parents aren’t here yet – sensei called them, but they were pretty far out of town.”

“I could have told you that,” Nao murmurs, returning his head to Natsuya’s shoulder. “But I’m okay, right?”

Natsuya makes a strange noise in the back of his throat. “The doctor wants you to see an eye specialist,” he whispers. “They asked me a bunch of questions trying to work out what actually happened to you, and apparently they think there’s something wrong with your right eye.”

At Nao’s request, Natsuya holds his hand through the whole eye examination – his parents are still an hour out and he’s _scared_. He feels like he has been punched in the stomach when he gets the results. Not only has his vision slipped and he really should have been wearing glasses for the past six months – that’s where the headaches have come from – but he has a detached retina in his eye, which has been causing everything else, not helped in the slightest by the headaches.

He’s not allowed to swim until he has surgery on his eye. The closest date they can get him is halfway through the next year.

Nao is going to miss the competition season.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and leave kudos!


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